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Friday, June 21, 2013

Patriotic Treats with a Side of Summer Accountability

It all started when I was pinning (which I do quite a lot now that school is out and when I'm successfully putting off doing something) away on Pinterest and I came across this pin...

Stephen and I were going to enjoy a cook-out at his parents house for Memorial Day Weekend and I decided that I was going to make one of Stephen's most favorite treats: Cake Balls. Have you ever made cake balls? Have you ever tried them? If you've never tried them, you need to get your hands on at least one and taste the goodness for yourself - they are truly amazing. If you've never made them, let me caution you: they are very time consuming. Back in February I made the mistake of asking Stephen what he wanted for his birthday. He insisted that he wanted nothing and I insisted that it was HIS birthday, I would make him ANYTHING he wanted (did you read my post from Monday to see how busy I was during this time?). He decided that he wanted cake balls. I'm pretty sure a part of me died a little inside when he said that...of all the things he wanted, he chose the most time consuming dessert possible. However, I did tell him that I would make anything he wanted (dang it!) and so cake balls it was....

Fast forward to May - school was about to be out and summer was on the verge of happening - I was feeling adventurous! I was going to make cake balls...not just any cake balls, Patriotic Cake Balls!!! {cue the dramatic, excited music}

1st step was to make the cake balls. If you've never made them before, here is the recipe (there are a million if you google "how to make cake balls" or "cake pops" and they're all about the same). I used a half a tub of frosting to make mine. I went with white cake (mine and Stephen's fav) and white icing. After I made the cake balls, I arranged them in my 13x9 metal cake pan to get an idea of how many of my balls {insert inappropriate middle school boy jokes here} needed to be red, white and blue.

Once I figured out how many balls needed to be what color, I got to work and did each color separately. I used the Wilton colored candies from JoAnns (or any craft store - even Wal-Mart carries them) to coat my cake balls. I had lots of trays of different colored cake balls sitting around my kitchen. Talk about needing self control to just hang around them without eating them! If you do make cake balls, be sure you make lots of extras so you can just pop them in your mouth while you're working!

Unfortunately I did not do my math correctly and I didn't have the right amount of white cake balls. What's scary about this is that I teach 4th grade math....this was a perfect example of math in real life (because everyone makes cake balls, right?) and yet I failed at it. Stink.

The good news is that even though I was short on the white balls, they still tasted great! It's a good thing that these desserts take a while to make, otherwise, I'm pretty sure I would make them entirely too often and my thighs would pay the price for this bad addiction!

For this upcoming 4th of July, I'm thinking about making this dessert from Betty Crocker:

I'm also thinking about making these to hang under the pergola by our family room window:

Now onto the side of Summer Accountability. I know you probably don't care about how I'm spending my summer days and please know that this part of the post is entirely for me. Last summer I found myself getting overwhelmed by all the different things I wanted to accomplish during the summer time. This overwhelming feeling kept me from accomplishing much of anything. As a way to try and ward off laziness, I've decided that I'm going to blog about my daily activities during the summer. Maybe it'll keep me from getting sucked into Bravo's Real House Wives Marathon because I'm ashamed to tell all of blogland that this is how I chose to spend my day! So here it is, my daily what dos:

Monday: walked Princeton in the morning, changed the sheets on the bed and washed them, put sheets back on the guest bed, did the laundry and put it up, blogged, did my Bible study, worked on a small art project that I had been putting off, touched up trim in the entry way, went to Bible Study.

Tuesday: walked Princeton in the morning, put a first coat of paint on the inside of the front door, put up the last basket of laundry, went to dinner with my parents, took Princeton on an evening walk.

Wednesday: walked Princeton in the morning, put a second coat of paint on the front door, cleaned up in the basement, my friend Julie came over and we hung out most of the afternoon, took Princeton on an evening walk.

Thursday: cleaned up the paint mess, went to the grocery store, worked out in the backyard for 3 hours, vacuumed and tidied up, made dinner and Stephen's parents came for dinner, took Princeton on an evening walk.

Friday: filled the dishwasher, did the rest of the dishes, worked in the vegetable garden, painted the first coat on our bedroom closet, emptied the dishwasher, blogged.....

Do you think I'm crazy yet? Feel free to skim past these random lists of my uneventful days...I'll be honest - I did get sucked into a few episodes of Real House Wives of the OC...it's like a train wreck and I can't turn away. These women are SO mean to each other. It's hard to wrap my mind around the fact that they exist, they're adults and I'm aiding their richness by being sucked into their drama. Ugh. Do you have any "guilty" tv pleasures? I'm not gonna lie....I also get sucked into Real House Wives of NJ....okay, enough confessions!

I would love for you to share and link up at my weekly TGIF Link Party if you haven't already this week. Your favorite posts, most popular, recent or new! The party is open every Thursday night and closes Wednesday's at midnight. Followed by (Not SO) Wordless Wednesday! http://apeekintomyparadise.blogspot.com/. I would be honored if you join us! Have a wonderful week!

So normally I would say that I have NOTHING worth typing about that anyone would be interested in reading, however, with all the change that is upon my life, why not write about it? This blog is for those who are bored and are curious of all the craziness that is to come in the next couple of months as my life goes from quiet and scheduled to somewhat hectic. Read on to find out the adventures as a girl who was used to living in a small town adjusts to life in the big city *YIKES!